The Detroit Tigers had been struggling. Being swept in a three game series against the Washington Nationals (the presumptive favorite to represent the National League in the World Series), will do that to a baseball team. They were struggling to score runs and had not fared much better in the pitching department. So you could say the mood at Comerica Park was tense, to say the least. But what happened next was maybe the most entertaining thing to happen during the Detroit Tigers season to that point.
Oh, and not to mention the Tigers were in the midst of blowing an 8 run lead against the last placed team in the division.
The manager (for now) of the team, Brad Ausmus, was so angry about a called third strike against Tigers third baseman Nick Castellanos. The resulting argument with home-plate umpire Doug Eddings was one of the best ejections on a baseball field I've ever seen. It concluded with Ausmus taking off his MLB issued Detroit Tigers hoodie and adding a few choice words for Eddings.
You might say that Ausmus blew a gasket and you would be 100% right in this assessment. Lets just remember that managers/coaches are people to.
Today is Steve Yzerman's 51st birthday. Yzerman was my favorite athlete growing up a Red Wings fan. My mom will tell stories of me introducing myself as Yzerman as a youngster (I can neither confirm or deny). This does sound like something a young Andrew Walsh would do. I cannot say anything bad about him. His play taught me to stay humble and work hard. However, he is now the general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning who are the team that have defeated the Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs last year and again this year. This year's series was not much of a contest given the fact that the Red Wing's power play (a power play happens when one team is called for a penalty and the player who committed the penalty is sent to the penalty box giving the other team the opportunity to play with one more team on the ice for a maximum of either two or five minutes).
I will never forget one goal that Steve Yzerman scored in particular. It happened on May 17, 1996 when I was seven years old so I may have some of the details wrong. That's exactly what Google was invented for, if you ask me. The Red Wings won the game on a slap shot by Yzerman from just outside the blue-line of their offensive zone. It must have fooled the goalie for the St. Louis Blues, Jon Casey, barely moved to stop the puck. What ensued can only be described as pure, unadulterated joy. Every time I see a replay of that particular goal, a smile comes across my face.
Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors slipped on a wet spot on the court during the end of the first half of game 4 of their series with the Houston Rockets, a team that everyone with eyes knows does not want to be on the court with one another anymore. This is sad because the Warriors are easily the most entertaining team to watch in sports right now.
This injury will be especially devastating if it prevents the team from winning the NBA championship for a second straight year. The Warriors just set the NBA record for wins in a season with 73, a record that was set by the Chicago Bulls in 1995-96. This Chicago Bulls team had the best player in the league at that point (and some might even say he is still the best player in the league), Michael Jordan and other great players such as Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and 3-point shooting specialist Steve Kerr (who is now the head coach for the Golden State Warriors. The fact that Curry was injured at this point in the season does not mean that they shouldn't have tried to break the Bulls' record, but the cynics will say that the ultimate goal of team sports is to win a championship. I will not be one of those cynics.
The NBA has needed a storyline that will draw the casual fan into watching games, and this great team with a player that is universally loved has done just that. There are no villains in the league now that LeBron James has gone back to Cleveland after a four year stint with the Miami Heat, a move that was vilified at the time because he had left his "home" team, the Cleveland Cavaliers in a one hour special on ESPN in which he infamously said he would be taking his talents to South Beach. Cavaliers fans were so upset that they even began burning their Lebron James jerseys in a fit of rage (no worries, it's not like he'll ever come back to play for the Cavs again).
As far back as I can remember, I have always loved watching sports with my Dad. I remember specifically watching Detroit Red Wings games with him as a child. This love for sports crossed over to baseball and basketball. I played wheelchair basketball with the Sterling Heights Challengers from the time I was in elementary school up until my senior year in high school.
One thing that learned from watching and playing sports was to work with others. I was taught that if a group of people come together, they can accomplish anything. I have used this lesson of teamwork in my school career as well as working in the internship I am currently working at. I enjoy working with other people because I feel it makes work go by faster.
I believe that my love for sports and ability to work well with other people will help me one day get a job in the marketing field. I believe I can contribute a lot to a workplace because of the fact that I learned at a young age to get along with others and work towards a team goal.
